Something we’ve seen from various comic book publishers in recent years is an attempt to align their titles with their big and small screen counterparts. Although the source material inspires the live action adaptations, it doesn’t hurt to when the former takes a few cues from the latter. After all, new readers are often hooked when they see something comparable to a movie or TV show they love.
Marvel is certainly no stranger to doing this, as evidenced by their upcoming All-New Guardians of the Galaxy and Defenders series. No doubt capitalizing on the popularity of the hit Netflix show, none other than Luke Cage can proudly be added to that list. And seeing as how he’s on a pop culture upswing right now, there couldn’t be a better time to grant him a headlining gig.
If anything, the House of Ideas picked the right man to pen this series in David Walker, who has already written for the character in Power Man & Iron Fist. As for artistic duties, those will be handled by Nelson Blake II.
Walker recently sat down with CBR to discuss what we can expect from this take on Luke Cage and had the following to say:
“With this book I’m trying to build off the shoulders of everything that has come before. Just as he was in the Power Man & Iron Fist run, he’s a bit wiser. He’s still very street-smart, but he’s also a father, a husband, and he’s been through a lot more. I’m writing him in a much more contemplative way. He’s the sort of person who’d like to figure out how to get out of a bad spot without having to resort to just throwing punches. It always seems like he has to throw punches, though, before he can figure out how to get out of a bad situation.”
As he continued, he readily admitted the Netflix series had some influence on this run:
“I’m writing him as a little more mature, and I’m not going to say that the television show was a huge influence on me, but it did show me a lot of ideas and ways Luke could be handled; a lot of them were in conjunction with ideas I had been developing in the first place or had been thinking about. I really want to give the readers the best Luke possible, and I think that’s a Luke who does more than just fight all the time. I think the best superheroes are ones who aren’t just beating the crap out of something or someone.”
Luke Cage is set to arrive in comic shops sometime this May.
